PPlog (Patient and Public Log) is an independent Service User watchdog/monitor for:

• social justice

* equality and human rights

• social care

• service user involvement and consultation

• disability and volunteer rights

An outpost for The Survivors' History Group.

And a base for blogs for Norfolk Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC).

HELLO THERE!

WELCOME TO ALL FELLOW CAMPAIGNERS for DISABILITY RIGHTS - a pan disability blog connecting my work with, EQUAL LIVES, the National Survivor User Network (NSUN) and the Survivor History Group. --- HEDDWCH

Protest, Norwich Job Centre

Fatso Gets Militant!

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

Revelations at the Receiving End. Update1.

Short one. I had a home visit by a social worker for an initial assessment. Came with a companion as he is visually impaired. First impressions: a nice pair of people.

Took all the time that was needed and all in all a pleasant, positive experience. Got on well with him and had some chat about social work values and standards. Empathy, except that we firmly disagreed about the viability and legitimacy of a stranger attempting to make an assessment over the phone - and when he started to use managementspeak.

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About Me

Born and grew up in Llandudno, north Wales on a small council estate. From a working class family in the poorest part of town I passed for Grammar School but, although in the A stream throughout, I engineered my departure at age 15, rebelling against the gross class distinction and snobbery there. I served a five year apprenticeship with the Wales Gas Board and practised as a Gas Fitter in London, Shropshire, Denbighshire, Guernsey and back to Llandudno until 1968 when I started pre-professional work as a student child care worker. Married three times, I have lived with my present wife and family here in rural Norfolk since 1980.

Professional history summary

30 years as a mental health social work practitioner and MWO/ASW in Devon, N Wales and, from 1978, East Anglia - hospital based for Norfolk to 1985, community based for Suffolk to 1999 (with 2 year spell 1989 to 1991 as a freelance substance misuse counsellor mainly at the Roche Clinic, Southend and NORCAS in Lowestoft).

Special interest in supporting developments of service user and care involvement throughout.

Early ill-health retirement in 1999 from full-time work with Suffolk (via an Employment Tribunal disability discrimination action). Active in volunteer work since retirement, including mental health, whistleblowing and false allegations (of child abuse) advocacy; social work practice teaching; compiling and writing a small community newspaper (and developing advocacy reporting); researching service user and carer issues and the development of PPI; jazz education projects; and, as a member of the Norfolk UNISON Retired Members Section, I’m currently updating PPeyes, working for the Norfolk LINks and waiting to begin some advocacy work for Age Concern Norfolk. I was an inaugural active member of the reinstituted British Association of Social; Workers’ (BASW) Mental Health Special Interest Group and, as social work representative at the Parliamentary launch, the whistleblowers’ organisation Freedom to Care in the early 1990s.

I Remained active throughout the 1990s and particular national work included: mental incapacity; eating disorders; defeating depression; support for those in difficulty; advice and representation; whistleblowing; and mental health law revision and reform. Shortlisted for the Mental Health Commission in mid 1990s and Parliamentary Officer for BASW in late 1990s.

Published work:

Free Expression of Staff Concerns (whistleblowing) for BASW, 1993; articles on whistleblowing issues for Community Care, Care Weekly and Professional Social Work in early/mid 1990s; ‘Whistleblowing and training for accountability’ in ‘Whistleblowing in the Social Services’, ed. Geoff Hunt, Arnold 1998. BASW Mental Health Special Interest Group’s response to the Reform of the Mental Health Act White Paper; individual contribution to the Joint Committee on Human Rights report ‘Draft Mental Health Bill’ (their appendix No. 10); AAFAA report (presented as a witness) to the Nolan Committee inquiry into Child Abuse in the Catholic Church 2001; individual contribution to the Home Affairs Select Committee on false allegations of child abuse; various articles for the Beccles Community Newspaper, ‘The Essential Voice”; ‘Access all Areas’ (PPI), in Care and Health Magazine 13 - 19 April, 2004. ‘PPI = Patient and Public Impediment’ - various outlets April 2004.